Can a customer ghost me after paying only for the first milestone?

[sweetmayo]

I meant about Milestone projects, I'm just curious because I recently I had a client who at first offered me $100 for the job which was too low for a 5 minute animation that has like 10 characters and I told that $500 was the reasonable amount to work with but he said he couldn't afford that amount. We worked down the price to $275 with some exceptions but asked me if he can pay in a milestone to test me (he has his right to do that, I know). 

He wants to pay $75 for the first week and the rest of $200 at the end. So the question is, can a person pay only for the first mile stone and not pay for the rest.

And No, I am not saying that he is suspicious or he would do something like that but I wanna know if something like this can happen since I don't want to stay up all night and work for a whole month and not get fully paid at the end.

[smashradio]

1 hour ago, sweetmayo said:

I meant about Milestone projects, I'm just curious because I recently I had a client who at first offered me $100 for the job which was too low for a 5 minute animation that has like 10 characters and I told that $500 was the reasonable amount to work with but he said he couldn't afford that amount. We worked down the price to $275 with some exceptions but asked me if he can pay in a milestone to test me (he has his right to do that, I know). 

He wants to pay $75 for the first week and the rest of $200 at the end. So the question is, can a person pay only for the first mile stone and not pay for the rest.

And No, I am not saying that he is suspicious or he would do something like that but I wanna know if something like this can happen since I don't want to stay up all night and work for a whole month and not get fully paid at the end.

Yes, the buyer can ghost you. Which is why you should never work for less than you charge. Milestones are for projects you can deliver in parts. If you deliver the entire video to him in the first milestone, he can take your animation and disappear. If you're using the Milestones feature on this one, he should only expect to receive 27% of the animation in the first milestone. That's 75 bucks worth of animation, according to your deal for 275. 

With all that said: Your buyer is a negotodog (read more about nightmare buyers here) and I would see it as a huge red flag if a buyer wanted to pay me around half of what my rate is. 

P.S. Working for a whole month for 275 bucks? Sounds more like slavery if you ask me. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by smashradio

[sweetmayo]

5 hours ago, smashradio said:

Yes, the buyer can ghost you. Which is why you should never work for less than you charge. Milestones are for projects you can deliver in parts. If you deliver the entire video to him in the first milestone, he can take your animation and disappear. If you're using the Milestones feature on this one, he should only expect to receive 27% of the animation in the first milestone. That's 75 bucks worth of animation, according to your deal for 275. 

With all that said: Your buyer is a negotodog (read more about nightmare buyers here) and I would see it as a huge red flag if a buyer wanted to pay me around half of what my rate is. 

P.S. Working for a whole month for 275 bucks? Sounds more like slavery if you ask me. 

Thanks for letting me know. Yes, I would only make only a few designs and a few seconds of frames for the video during the first milestone. I'll try to keep an eye out for trickery.

And as for the slavery part goes, I'm just a new seller and this one is my fourth order (technically 5th because a guy placed an order before this one without contacting me and when I tried to contact him he just ghosted me and didn't respond for many days so I had to cancel it). 

And placing a high price for my work wouldn't help attract me buyers since this is a new seller account so I'm happy with what I'm getting for now...

Thanks again though

Edited September 22, 2022 by sweetmayo
grammar